21 January 2016

Republican Senators Denounce Ted Cruz

Ronald Reagan's commandment that no Republican speak ill of another Republican has gone out the window, and the GOP Presidential race has degenerated into bedlam.

Ted Cruz and Donald Trump are the front runners in the race, but neither are embraced by the party establishment. Less than two weeks before the Iowa Caucuses, multiple Republican Senators has publicly denounced GOP Presidential candidate Ted Cruz on the grounds that he will lose the election, hurt Republican candidates down ticket, favors electorally damaging strategies, and doesn't play well with his fellow Republicans. More here.

Candidates acceptable to the GOP establishment meanwhile are not polling well with likely Republican voters. One time favorite Jeb Bush, struggles to poll above 5th place anywhere. The Republican establishment has no great love of political neophyte Ben Carson either.

Will the GOP grass roots wrest control from GOP insiders contrary to all of the conventional wisdom of political scientists in the much studied specialty of Presidential elections? Or, will the establishment regain control and crush several of the leading candidates for the GOP nomination and rally around some other establishment candidate deemed more acceptable such as Rubio (the best polling candidate likely to be acceptable to them)?

Meanwhile, the conservative National Review magazine has denounced Trump as a menace in an entire issue devoted to the question with a who's who of 22 conservative intellectuals condemning him from a variety of different perspectives. Trump blew off the effort, calling the National Review a dying publication.